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If you have patience, you could always use Star Fleet Battles, that's what it was designed for! Plus, you will be a hard core TOS purist.

Though I love SFB, in my opinion Federation Commander would probably be the best to use for RPG combat, as in worse-case scenarios, you could end up a single combat taking up an entire session, or maybe even spilling into 2, with SFB.

Also, FC has less rules for people to get familiar with, so would not recommend SFB unless all your players know it and play it already.

Decipher is the definition of failure in RPGs, CCGs, etc. There is a reason you got those books for such a good deal. I saw the whole line for sale at Gen Con last year (new) for $6 a book. It's a horrible system and it's also an unsupported system at this point. They stopped producing the line in 2007.

Yeah, I found the Decipher Trek RPG to be subpar. However, the Star Trek CCG is amazing (especially the First Edition).

I've ran and played both the FASA Star Trek RPG, and the original Prime Directive. I like them both immensely. FASA gets the nod for being more accurate to the source material, but Prime Directive is a lot of fun a s well.

Prime Directive takes place in the same universe/timeline as Starfleet Battles. These games are based on a license from Franz Joseph and Paramount. It's basically TOS up to the first movie. Of course there is no mention of any Kirk, Spock, etc., but it does contain ships, aliens, weapons, etc. from the original series.

The FASA game is out of print, but can be found on Ebay and used game stores. Prime Directive is still in print. As far as Decipher's version I have the main rulebook, but haven't had the chance to play it. From reading the rules though, it does appear to be more rules oriented than the previous games.

As someone else mentioned I would suggest Federation Commander for ship battles simulation. I have played Starfleet Battles for many years, but have switched over to FC for it greatly improved simplicity. For a casual player I believe it would be the best choice.

Good Luck with your games!

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“There seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere...” - James T. Kirk

Decipher is the definition of failure in RPGs, CCGs, etc. There is a reason you got those books for such a good deal. I saw the whole line for sale at Gen Con last year (new) for $6 a book. It's a horrible system and it's also an unsupported system at this point. They stopped producing the line in 2007...

At the time, Decipher's books were selling quite well for pnp RPG books. Problem was that the front office thought it should be selling CCG numbers (much higher) so they forced the game down the same damn bottleneck that killed LUG's effort.

My little group and I play DnD every Friday, never the original of course, I can't stand fantasy settings. Now that the new movie came out, my Star Wars fan friend is interested in Star Trek, so I'm really wanting to get my hands on Prime Directive.

I have most of the trek RPGs people have mentioned here. The only one I ran and played was FASA Trek, which I really liked. You have to make a great deal up for the Next Gen time period but the rules are good and its depiction of Classic Trek is spot on. The others I have a few books of but never really cared for in terms of game mechanics.

You could probably make Prime Directive work. The bonus here is that its really easy to utilize other GURPS stuff then. Just make sure you stay away from first edition nonGURPS Prime Directive-that's a horrible rules set designed by someo0ne who knew nothing about what makes a RPG work.